Lightworks describes itself as the complete video creation package. It proudly explains how for over 25 years, Lightworks Editor has been at the forefront of film editing. Filmmakers have used it on many of the finest films in cinema history, including The Wolf of Wall Street, LA Confidential, Pulp Fiction, Heat, Road to Perdition, Hugo, The King’s Speech and many more. 

Its current incarnation is Lightworks 2020. You can gain a 7-day free license by merely downloading the program and registering it. You can upgrade to Pro for all tools and export formats. Lightworks offers a free license version with all the tools – the only restriction is on output formats. The Lightworks Pro license can be purchased as needed; go monthly, annually, or get the outright license, which includes Boris Graffiti and FX packages.

Lightworks features a simple and intuitive user interface. You will also find a sizable set of tutorial videos that cover everything you need to know and a community of users to help with every question. You have direct access from the editing timeline to over 100 included FX’s and the best original production music and stock video from Audio Network and Pond5.

The company believes that Lightworks sets the standards for trimming. It contains simple yet powerful tools for trimming. Lightworks allows you to continue editing while you are importing a batch of material, rendering your complicated third-party FX, or exporting two files at the same time to your favorite format. Lightworks has a real-time GPU pipeline architecture to deal with compositing and effects, such as primary and secondary color correction, blurs, mattes, and masks, including over 100 inbuilt effect presets.

With Lightworks Free, you face no limitations on import formats. You can only save as a Web-compatible file (MPEG4/H.264 – max. resolution: 1280x720p pixels) or as a Lightworks Archive. You can, optionally, upload your creations directly to YouTube at up to 720p.

You can upgrade to Lightworks Pro, for $24.99 per month, $174.99 per year, or $437.99 for outright purchase. These add an additional 25 output formats. You can also export to YouTube at up to UHD 4K. 

Lightworks Pro also adds more advanced features, such as user-definable project locations, advanced Project sharing, stereoscopic (3D) output, AJA, Blackmagic, Matrox, and Mackie Mixer Support, timeline rendering, Lightworks Console support and more. Lightworks also adds in a few additional plugin packages to those who make the outright purchase. The core editing tools are available in all forms of the program, however.